From 1 Cor 6:19 Why is the need for the analogy that the Holy Spirit having our body as a temple? What is the implication of this?
First Corinthians 6:19 reads: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” The significance of the Holy Spirit being in Christians appears in 1 Corinthians 6:20. “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” The children of God indeed have been purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28). Therefore, we belong to God, and as such we need to act godly in conduct and thought, whereby we can glorify or magnify Almighty God.
Adam Clarke voiced it marvelously when he wrote of 1 Corinthians 6:19:
What an astonishing saying is this! As truly as the living God dwelt in the Mosaic tabernacle, and in the temple of Solomon, so truly does the Holy Spirit dwell in the souls of genuine Christians; and as the temple and all its utensils were holy, separated from all common and profane uses, and dedicated alone to the service of God, so the bodies of genuine Christians are holy, and all their members should be employed in the service of God alone.
Albert Barnes summarizes: “The Holy Spirit dwells in us; our bodies are his temples; and they should not be defiled and polluted by sin…” Specific to the context (1 Corinthians 6:15-20) in which 1 Corinthians 6:19 appears, especially Christians are to refrain from sexual immoralities; it is not appropriate for Christians who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ from sins and in whom dwell the Holy Spirit to continue in sins (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), and especially to persist in sexual sins. Elsewhere in Scripture, we have divine instruction essentially to practice what we profess; “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6). First Corinthians 6:19-20 would have the children of God to do no less!
Works Cited
Adam Clarke’s Commentary. CD-ROM. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2006.
